The purpose of the project is to understand what educational issues can best be addressed through the intelligent application of Education Technology (EdTech). Beginning with surveys of what is currently happening in EdTech in the four target countries of Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam, coupled with country diagnostic analysis ‘eReadiness Reports’ these have been used to identify the ways in which technology solutions can be targeted in the pilot EdTech interventions accordingly. The project has four main outputs:

(i) EdTech diagnostics in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam conducted and disseminated;
(ii) EdTech interventions in the four countries tested;
(iii) impact of EdTech interventions evaluated;
(iv) support for scaling up EdTech interventions in the four countries provided.

The assignment includes delivery of all activities in a systematic manner and in close collaboration with national governments and school systems in the four countries, and the private sector, working on using technology in education and training in order to achieve demonstrable and measurable results.

Having completed the diagnostics of what works in EdTech in Southeast Asia, the project organized, in early February 2022, knowledge-sharing workshops. in close collaboration with the targeted ministries with invitees from each country in turn. The workshops provided an opportunity for selected project partners from the private sector to demonstrate their successful country solutions that have been operating to date. The presentations were followed by Ideation workshops that enabled policymakers to agree on the nature of the EdTech interventions in each of the four countries.

Then, in early March, a major online conference took place the aim of which was to report on the state of EdTech internationally and regionally in the wake of the COVID school closure crisis. It summarised the project findings to date in each of the countries and provided a showcase for the pilot projects to be launched in Q3, 2022. The conference included a panel of EdTech experts from around the globe, as well as the regional players, and sought to pin down the metrics to be used for the generation of valid, useful, meaningful, and reliable performance data to evaluate the efficacy of these EdTech interventions.

In order that sufficient performance data is generated over a manageable time period, the EdTech interventions will run for one year, during which time capacity-building workshops will be held in the four countries and the progress of the EdTech interventions will be evaluated.

The TIESEA project will culminate in a major international conference and trade show in one of the partner countries in September 2023. It will provide a platform to share and celebrate more widely the successes and the findings of the project interventions country by country. The conference will lay the ground for the consolidation of EdTech Roadmaps for each of the four project partner countries. It will be a significant opportunity for EdTech providers across the region to present and promote the contributions they are able to make in order to prepare the way of IR4.0 in South East Asia.